Page:History of Oregon volume 1.djvu/700

Rh understanding that inscrutable law of nature which makes it fatal to the dark races to encounter the white race; or if they perceived its effects, not knowing that the white men were as ignorant as themselves of the cause.

When the mission Indians found that a disease which they could not control had been introduced among them, they became greatly alarmed and excited, as did also the natives on Puget Sound, to which district the measles had spread. Being a white man's disease, the Indians thought a white doctor should be able to cure it. In fact, they were witnesses to the fact that the white patients generally recovered, while their own did not. That they were much to blame for the fatal results in many cases, was true. Being